Mellow Musings on Some Bad Beginnings

Bad beginnings are weighing heavily on my mind these days, yet I’m still actually surprised I have ended up writing about one in particular. Since there is plenty that I watch that I do not write about, I was surprised when the wheels started turning during “Bad Beginning: Part 2,” the second episode of Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.  For context, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, was my favorite book series as a child. This evening, I was watching mostly to indulge my inner 12 year old. I realized slowly, however, that this was not merely a nostalgia trip, but instead a truly appropriate and fitting piece of entertainment for this particular time of our lives. You see, the wheels were turning because I was realizing that A Series of Unfortunate Events is not and has never been merely an amusing study in morbidity or a potential star vehicle for Neil Patrick Harris. No, Events is above all else a celebration of intelligence and that is exactly what the world needs right now.

This is all readily apparent in the climax of “The Bad Beginning: Part 2.” In the climax, Count Olaf, the evil actor intent on stealing the recently orphaned Baudelaire siblings’ fortune, misuses the word “literally.” In the back of the theater where his evil plot is coming to fruition, Gustav and Jacqueline, the mysterious plotters on the side of the orphans, correct him. It is a throw back to an earlier gag where Olaf had made the same mistake, but in this particular moment it is also used to draw the battle lines. The villains do not know the difference between “figuratively” and “literally” and the heroes do. The villains are foolish and the heroes are clever. This is a reflection of the same set of values that caused the Baudelaire orphans’ defining characteristics to be invention (Violet), literacy (Klaus), and the ability to be understood (Sunny, the infant). They are all smarter than their respective ages and that is one of the many reasons we are keen to root for them.

The fact that Olaf is an idiot and not well versed in literary terms is not exactly a novel invention, but there is one character whose lack of intelligence and awareness is notable and important. Mr. Poe, the banker who is the executor of the Baudelaire parents’ will is comedically incompetent, but his incompetence is what gets the Baudelaire orphans in trouble from the get-go. He believes Count Olaf and does not listen to the children when they complain to him. In the Baudelaire’s world, authority figures like Poe are condescending, dumb, and not to be trusted. This is readily apparent in Poe’s audacity to frequently correct the children and more importantly, his attempts to define words to them that they already know.

The defining of words was always my favorite part of the book series when I was younger. Most of the time, the person doing the defining is not in fact Mr. Poe, but Lemony Snicket, the narrator and pseudonym for the author, Daniel Handler. He does not define the obvious words that Mr. Poe does, but instead he defines larger words and literary concepts, like the aforementioned “literally” and as is seen in “The Reptile Room: Part 1,” “dramatic irony.” His definitions and examples are always hilariously funny, but I realize part of the reason I enjoyed them so much as a child were because they were a point of access. If the reader did not know these concepts from the start, they now did and could be on the side of the heroes once again. We, the readers, were not the ignorant villains or authority figures, but instead we got to be the clever members of the conspiracy. The intelligence that is celebrated is therefore not alienating. I had always underestimated Handler’s patience when I was younger and it is only now that I appreciate the power in what I saw as merely humor. Rather than assuming the children reading his books were like his three orphans, he was making sure they could one day share their special talents.

Today, and in the days to come, I fear the Mr. Poes.  I fear the ones too comfortable with their own authority that they underestimate the intelligence of those around them and overestimate their own. I fear also those who would automatically turn off a series that also celebrates vocabulary and label it elitist or distancing. If those people kept watching it they would learn that such a series believes that people are not inherently dumb or smart, but instead, those who are dumb are merely those who will not listen. I am scared that we have our own series of unfortunate events awaiting us, but I also believe that there are those with the patience of Lemony Snicket out there or the passion of Montgomery Montgomery and that in each of us there is a little Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. Surround yourself with people who will define those words for you and who will listen to you when you tell them something is not right. Make sure you also do the same for them. Snicket himself would probably tell you that all hope is lost, but if you read between the lines I think you will see a message that is a whole lot brighter (figuratively).